A landmark of world literature, The Divine Comedy tells of the poet Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise in search of salvation. Before he is redeemed by his love for the heavenly Beatrice, he learns the meaning of evil, sin, damnation, and forgiveness through a series of unforgettable experiences and encounters. This edition of The Divine Comedy featuresA landmark of world literature, The Divine Comedy tells of the poet Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise in search of salvation. Before he is redeemed by his love for the heavenly Beatrice, he learns the meaning of evil, sin, damnation, and forgiveness through a series of unforgettable experiences and encounters. This edition of The Divine Comedy features Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's renowned and 135 full-page reproductions of Gustave Dore's classic engravings from the 1867 edition....more

"You can recognize a small truth because its opposite is a falsehood. The opposite of a great truth is another truth."

- Niels Bohr

I was thinking about Dante the other day and wondering how one could approach him from the angle of a GoodReads review. One of the obvious problems is that he lived a long time ago, and many of the cultural referents have changed. You're constantly having to think "Well, nowadays what he's saying would correspond to THAT". It isn't so bad in Hell, when there is plent"You can recognize a small truth because its opposite is a falsehood. The opposite of a great truth is another truth."

- Niels Bohr

I was thinking about Dante the other day and wondering how one could approach him from the angle of a GoodReads review. One of the obvious problems is that he lived a long time ago, and many of the cultural referents have changed. You're constantly having to think "Well, nowadays what he's saying would correspond to THAT". It isn't so bad in Hell, when there is plenty of entertainment to be had in seeing how the different sins are punished, and indulging your schadenfreude. Then Purgatory tells a moral story that's more or less timeless if you go for that sort of thing, but once you arrive in Paradise it starts getting seriously tricky. A lot of the stuff at first sight just seems irrelevant to the 21st century world... all these explanations about the mechanics of Ptolomaic astronomy, and Dante querying the inhabitants of Heaven on obscure theological points. It's notorious that readers most often give up somewhere in the third book. I started wondering if there was any modern-day author one could identify with Dante, and if that might help us connect to his concerns. And in fact, I do have a suggestion that some people will no doubt condemn out of hand as completely heretical: Richard Dawkins.

Now of course, I am aware that Dante was deeply immersed in the Christian world-view, and Dawkins is famous for being the world's most outspoken atheist. But it's not quite as crazy as it first may seem. Dante was a Christian to the core of his being, but he was furious with the way the Church was being run; he put several of its leaders, notably Pope Boniface VIII, in Hell. On the other side, I challenge anyone to read "The Ancestor's Tale" to the end, and not, at least for a moment, entertain the idea that Dawkins is in actual fact a deeply religious man. He admits as much himself: as he puts it, it's often not so much that he disagrees with conventionally religious people, more that "they are saying it wrong". Amen to that.

As noted, both Dante and Dawkins are extremely unhappy with the way mainstream religion is being organized. The other characteristic that unites them for me is this passionate love for science. One has to remember that, for Dante, Ptolomaic astronomy was state of the art stuff, and the details of the angelic hierarchy were a topic of vital importance; of course he cross-examines the hosts of the blessed to find out more. These days, I imagine he would be trying to get inside information on what happened during the Big Bang before spontaneous symmetry breaking occurred, whether or not the Higgs particle really exists, and how evolution produced human intelligence. For Dante, there didn't seem to be any opposition between religious faith and science - they were part of the same thing. I do wonder what he would have thought if he had been able to learn that many leading religious figures, even in the early 21st century, reject a large part of science as being somehow unreligious. It's wrong to spend your life dispassionately trying to understand God's Universe? I can see him getting quite angry about this, and deciding to rearrange the seating a little down in Hell.

I keep thinking that there's a book someone ought to write called "Five Atheists You'll Meet in Heaven". Please let me know when it comes out; I'll buy a copy at once.

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PS I couldn't help wondering what Paradise might have looked like if Dante had been writing today. Obviously we wouldn't have the old geocentric model of the Universe - it would be bang up to date. I think there is now far more material for an ambitious poet to work with than there was in the 14th century. For example, when we get to the Heaven of the Galaxy, I imagine him using this wonderful fact that all the heavy elements are made in supernova explosions. "We are all stardust", as some people like to put it. Then when we get to the Heaven of the Cosmos, we find that the light from the "Let there be light" moment at the beginning of Creation is still around - it's just cooled to 2.7 degrees K, and appears as the cosmic background radiation. But it's not completely uniform, as the quantum fluctuations left over from the period when the Universe was the size of an atomic nucleus are the beginnings of the galaxies created on the second day. Finally, we reach the Heaven of the Multiverse, and find that we are just one of many different universes. It was necessary to create all of them, so that random processes could make sure that a very small number would end up being able to support life. How impious to assume that God would only be able to create one Universe, and have to tweak all the constants Himself!...more

It is very difficult not to be lured by the highly intelligent craft of Durante degli Aliguieri (DA). And may be it is not a coincidence that he was the exact contemporary of Giotto, his fellow Florentine. For if Giotto planted the seed for a pictorial representation of the world in which man, at the center, and through a window, delivers to us a naturalistic depiction of divine stories, Dante also used his writing to posit himself as the Auth

THE DARING, somewhat COMIC, and also DIVINE, INVENTIO

It is very difficult not to be lured by the highly intelligent craft of Durante degli Aliguieri (DA). And may be it is not a coincidence that he was the exact contemporary of Giotto, his fellow Florentine. For if Giotto planted the seed for a pictorial representation of the world in which man, at the center, and through a window, delivers to us a naturalistic depiction of divine stories, Dante also used his writing to posit himself as the Author who through his fictional persona or Alter-Ego, gives us the viewpoint to contemplate the full cosmos. His cosmos, but for us to share.

Still, we modern readers, in spite of Modernist and PostModernist awareness, are still fooled by DA’s handling of illusion, and easily become pilgrims and start on a literary trip more than ready to absorb everything that DA wants us to see, and think, and believe.

POLITICS

So, for example, we will learn his political views. DA was exiled in 1301 and led a peripatetic life, outside Florence, until his death in 1321. He wrote the Commedia during the exile, from 1309 and finished it in time. By masterfully welding the fact and mythologized fiction of the world of Antiquity, he cloths himself with the full robes of Auctoritas, and presents us the complex development of European politics during the thirteenth century. He summons his views repeatedly either by the succession of visits to the traitors or in fully developed historical pageants.

Of course, Hell is populated by DA’s enemies, with the very pope responsible for his exile, Boniface VIII, holding stardom in Circle 8th. In this Inferno DA is the very Minos. He is the one who with his pen of many tails wraps around his enemies and throws them down the pit to the Circle that DA believes the chosen sinners deserve. Even if this spectacle horrifies his ingenuous Pilgrim.

The ranking of the Inferno Circles reflect also DA’s values. Lust is the least damaging while Treason, in particular political treason and the betrayal of friends, is the most despicable. In comparison even Lucifer, a rendition that remains faithful to the medieval tradition, is not much more than a grotesque, and not particularly hateful, monster.

Politics continue in Purgatory. DA’s audacity is again proved by the way he exploits to its fullest what was still a relatively new concept in Christian dogma (1274). If DA had been Minos in Inferno, he now is the discerning Cato of Purgatory. He is the one holding the Silver and Gold keys, and who claims to know the very intimate thought of those who had the luck to repent the instance just before dying. He awards then the transit ticket to Paradise. Can we be surprised if some of the awardees had some relation to those figures who had welcomed DA during his exile?

DA’s authorial knowledge is supplemented by the granting his protagonist with the role of Messenger of Hope. The Pilgrim, as the only human in Purgatory, can bid for more prayers to the still living relatives when he goes back to Earth. He can effect a change in the duration that any purging sinner is to spend in the transitional stage, the only one of the three realms in which the clock is ticking.

Could one expect DA to finally drop the political discourse in Heaven? No, of course not. There it even acquires greater strength since the discourse is cloaked with a divine mantle. In Paradiso it will be no other than Saint Peter himself who will denounce the path of degeneration that the Papacy had taken in recent years. And if Boniface VIII (died in 1303) had been repeatedly identified as the culprit for the evil in earth, now it is his succeeding popes, --and contemporary to the writing of Commedia--, who are selected by DA’s saintly mouthpiece. Pope Clement V was responsible for the transfer of the papacy to Avignon, and the cupidity of John XXII was for everyone to see.

Indeed, a secluded Apocalyptical 666 attests that politics forms a triptych in Commedia. In agreement with the intricate framework of parallels, symmetries and balances in this work, DA devoted the three chapters 6 in each book to political diatribes.

Apart from his relying on Ancient Auctoritas, DA also accorded the full weight of history to his views, and it is mostly in a couple of major pageants and in the Valley of the Kings that he exposes the political disaster that the withdrawal from the Italian peninsula by the Empire had on the various city states. It was left to the corrupt papacy and to the corrupt smaller kingdoms to spread crime along the full Europe. His solution was clear. The papacy had to govern only religious matters, and he extolled the Emperor Henry VII to hold the political reins of Europe. It is DA’s canonized Beatrice who has a reserved seat for this Emperor in God’s White Flower if he does succeed in exerting his salvific political role.

DOGMA

But the Commedia is not just about politics. This extremely complex work is also soaking in Christian Dogma. Of course politics and dogma were inextricably joined during the Middle Ages, and that was part of DA’s very complaint. And what is to me extraordinary about the immediate reception of Commedia, is that it was treated like Scripture. Even the early editions were illustrated like illuminated manuscripts—which in a way is most befitting if we remember that it is about the progress of a Pilgrim’s as he approaches Light and gains a 20/20 vision elevated tho the Trinitarian power.

In his appeal to religious dogma DA was extraordinarily successful, even if some of his claims were shockingly daring. He modified or added realms to the Christian Cosmos, with the peculiar understanding of the Limbo to accommodate revered figures from Ancient Antiquity, or added the Pre-Purgatory for the unabsolved Rulers. He designed his own ranking of the Sins, both for Hell and Purgatory. But most importantly he proposed his understanding of Free Will and its conflicting relationship to Predetermination and God’s vision. Not by chance did he place the discussion of Free Will at the very center of the work, in Canto 16 of Purgatory.

But the most dangerous proposition, for him, was his vehement defense of the limitations of the Papacy on Earth. He started writing in 1307 just a few years after the Papal Bull of Unam Sanctam the very controversial claim of papal infallibility. Not this book, but Dante’s Monarchia, in which he strongly attacked official tenet, was burned soon after Dante’s death and was included in the list of forbidden books during the 16th century.

NARRATIVE SCHEMES

To us, however, it is not his proclamations on Dogma, and not even his political views (except for historians), which offer the greatest interest. What is most remarkable for literature addicts is how DA, the author, develops all these themes, and succeeds in weighing with the gravest authority his poetic treatise. And this he does through his masterful manipulation of the power of fiction and the sophisticated uses of voices.

For a start, there is the protagonist: DA’s Alter Ego, and the only human in the full work. His humanity, and his being in the middle of the moral mess in which he has placed himself is the perfect mirror for the reader. But we can trust him to embody us because Virgil, the greatest Roman poet and chronologist of the foundation of Rome, will guide us. We can trust him also because Christian Divinity has selected him as the, temporary, guide. It is only when Virgil’s powers have reached his limits, two thirds into the full work, that the pilgrim’s identity is revealed to us. He is Dante himself, or Dante the Pilgrim (DP). With his revealed identity he can say goodbye to the pagan guide who cannot, alas, have a place in Heaven.

Dante, however, will.

The spoiler provided by our general culture has damaged the way we read the work. The astounding pretention of DA in assigning himself the powers in deciding who goes where in his system of divine retributions has been blurred to some naive readers. Some of them try to excuse Dante precisely because they have been entirely convinced by his acting puppet. The highly successful Dante the Pilgrim (DP) as a candid personality with the qualities of kindness, fear, anger and similar emotions, distracts our attention away from the real Dante, the Author.

The Pilgrim is an alibi mechanism for his creator. He shows pity for the people DA condemns. He can go beyond the Terrace of Pride, in which the rather proud DA may be still spending some of his time. And he becomes the anointed messenger from the Heavens to deliver to us what DA is writing. But we would also be mistaken if we did not recognized that not always him, but many other characters voice DA’s opinion. His brilliant dramatization with innumerable personages constitutes the choir of a ventriloquist.

In the sophisticated Narrative technique, the handling of time is also magisterial. Apart from the symbolic unfolding of the action during Holy Week of the year 1300, and the references to eternal cosmic time, it is the numerous voices of this clever ventriloquist who continually foretell what is to happen to the sinners.

Most outstandingly the voices predict the eternal condemnation of DA’s particular enemies. Some of these were not yet dead at the time of the pilgrimage, but had already passed away when DA was writing his poem. Such an example is the premonition that the most hated pope Boniface VIII will be damned. He died three years later. But there is also the shocking case of the soul that is already in penance while his body is still living on earth. This personality died even after Dante.

Finally it is DP himself, once he has entered Heaven, who engages in this foretelling, and of course, it had to be in his warning to the Popes that were about to be in power in the years after the voyage of the Commedia, reminding them to stay out of politics and to forget material wealth.

The suitability of DP as our Alter-egos to reach salvation is certified by his examinations on the Theological Virtues by the the Apostles Peter, James and John. He passes them with flying colors, because DP acknowledges that his knowledge is based on the Holy Text.

And it is also with Text, and DA was very well versed in exploiting its four levels of interpretation (Literal, allegorical, moral and anagogical), that is, with this new poetry that Dante Aliguieri is proposing a plan for his, and our, salvation. Because after such a heavenly Graduation who can deny the Commedia its status as Prophetic and Scriptural? May be we saw it coming, when the still anonymous Pilgrim posited himself, at the very beginning of the poem, as the 6th greatest poet after the likes of Homer, Ovid, Virgil etc. So, may be it is not by chance that his identity as Dante is revealed until Virgil is used and expensed.

Several other poets also populate the triptychal poem: representatives of the two pioneering schools of Provençal and Sicilian schools, as well as by those Florentines who with or just before DA, started formulating the sweet new style (dolce still novo) and exploring the literary possibilities of the still vernacular Tuscan tongue. But if DA has been exploiting his abilities as ventriloquist, it is with his own voice as a poet that he makes a presence in Commedia. A few of his fictional characters quote some of Dante’s earlier verses.

Having reached the Empirium of the poem, we can stop and think about where Dante Alighieri has taken us. Because, even if not eternal salvation, he has delivered us a most extraordinary feat of literature that we cannot but qualify as divine. Furthermore, he has done so in a newly coined language, to which he added some words of his own invention, and, most outstanding of all, he positioned the Author at the very center of that literary White Rose of fiction.

And this flower continued to exude its rich scent until, in a similar process to the displacement of Giotto’s viewer, Roland Barthes, plucked it in the declaration formulated in his 1967 Essay The Death of the Author.

SteveYet another brilliant exegesis, Kalliope! You always put your reviews in an interesting, scholarly context. This isn't the first time I've thought ofYet another brilliant exegesis, Kalliope! You always put your reviews in an interesting, scholarly context. This isn't the first time I've thought of how edifying it would be to take a course with you as the professor....more
Jun 08, 2015 08:32AM

I propose an extra level in the Inferno for procrastinators and abandoners. I was planning to write a novel where three protagonists commit suicide and end up in Scottish Hell. Since overcrowding has plagued the old Scottish Hell HQ, the protagonists are forced to queue up for weeks on end before arriving at the building for processing. Upon their arrival, their sins are assessed by an administrator to determine which circle of Hell is appropriate for them. But due to cutbacks and financial instI propose an extra level in the Inferno for procrastinators and abandoners. I was planning to write a novel where three protagonists commit suicide and end up in Scottish Hell. Since overcrowding has plagued the old Scottish Hell HQ, the protagonists are forced to queue up for weeks on end before arriving at the building for processing. Upon their arrival, their sins are assessed by an administrator to determine which circle of Hell is appropriate for them. But due to cutbacks and financial instabilities, the three suicides are deemed unfit for service in Hell and are returned to their bodies. Back on Earth, the three characters return to their miserable lives, which they want to leave immediately. But before they commit suicide again, they have to break free from their mousy personalities and commit sins grievous enough to secure them a decent place in Hell. As the characters commit petty thefts and minor infelicities, the sin requirements to Hell become tougher and tougher, and they are repeatedly returned to their bodies. They spend their lives building up to larger and larger sins, constantly being returned to their bodies as the world around them becomes increasingly more depraved and violent. When they die, because the notion of “sin” has been completely reclassified to mean the most vile, sickest violations, they are secured a place Heaven for their relatively minor embezzlements, murders and rapes. I started this book but lost impetus halfway through. I was convinced this idea was derivative of other works (the Hell-as-bureaucracy has certainly popped up in British satire) and lost heart. I also lost heart halfway through the Inferno section of this, despite the translation being very fluent and readable. So I am going to the tenth circle, for the procrastinating bolter. (I did read the graphic novel version: partial redemption?)...more

“After listing the vast array of famous composers, artists, and authors who had created works based on Dante’s epic poem, Langdon scanned the crowd. “So tell me, do we have any authors here tonight?” Nearly one-third of the hands went up. Langdon stared out in shock. Wow, either this is the most accomplished audience on earth, or this e-publishing thing is really taking off.”

I first read this poem four years ago as part of a dare. And by “dare,” I mean a professor listed it on the syllabus and I had to read it and then write papers about it. The next summer, I wanted to read it again on account of the graphic imagery of Inferno and Purgatorio. The punishments/reparations are mindblowing, scary, and beautiful. Everyone should at the very least skim Inferno. Particularly in Inferno, the political references are funny and provocative, and the historical significance ofI first read this poem four years ago as part of a dare. And by “dare,” I mean a professor listed it on the syllabus and I had to read it and then write papers about it. The next summer, I wanted to read it again on account of the graphic imagery of Inferno and Purgatorio. The punishments/reparations are mindblowing, scary, and beautiful. Everyone should at the very least skim Inferno. Particularly in Inferno, the political references are funny and provocative, and the historical significance of this epic poem is right up there with the Bible and Paradise Lost for me. Paradiso is far more abstract and sappy than the other books.

I re-read all three last Fall because I’ve always felt attached to this work, and I figure you gotta read something at LEAST three times before you say its your favorite book. But yeah, this is my favorite book. It makes me want to learn Italian and read Dante’s Italian (and the whole part about him writing it in Italian instead of Latin pissed off so many people—again, the history of this piece is great). It makes me want to visit Italy. It makes me want to write something worth reading!...more

A few caveats to this review: I am not a theologian, philosopher, medieval historian, Dante expert, nor astrologist. I am, however, a reader who wants to read "all of teh books" and I appreciate vivid imagery and interesting human interactions in fiction. I tackled the recent Clive James version of Dante's Divine Comedy--no footnotes or canto introductions here--because I just wanted to let the story wash overI finished it! Someone, bring me my medal...

the Inferno is Hieronymus Bosch with words

A few caveats to this review: I am not a theologian, philosopher, medieval historian, Dante expert, nor astrologist. I am, however, a reader who wants to read "all of teh books" and I appreciate vivid imagery and interesting human interactions in fiction. I tackled the recent Clive James version of Dante's Divine Comedy--no footnotes or canto introductions here--because I just wanted to let the story wash over me, to see how much I could "get" on my own without knowing why Dante's father's baker's frenemy's ex-lover's dog-handler was sitting upside-down in the burning pitch in Hell. And when it comes to vivid imagery, the Inferno delivers. Surprisingly (to me), the Purgatorio was also fairly easy to follow, as Dante and Virgil continue up a ceaseless barren slope past the singing, self-flagellating sinners who do their time for various sins and, each time an angel wipes an ash-mark from their foreheads, become one level closer to heaven.

From reading the inferno in high school I had recalled Dante as a sniveling, swooning sissy--but on this re-read found myself very much liking his sensitivity and sense of empathy, especially to many of the sinners in hell (well, as long as they are classical figures. If he knows them, he's more likely to go stomp on their heads). Guide Virgil has to chastise him numerous times to keep him from getting (understandably) emotionally mired in the horrors he witnesses. My favorite parts, besides perhaps the insult-throwing trident-wielding demons, were the back-and-forths between Dante and Virgil.

Sadly, though, Virgil is barred from entering heaven, and in the third book Paradiso we are stuck with the so-nauseatingly-lovely-and-perfect-that-you-just-want-to-smack-her Beatrice. Regardless of this new guide, I found Dante's heaven as impenetrable as listening to someone describe an acid-trip. It struck me as a sort of renaissance-era Yellow Submarine (complete with its own Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds) though the incessant choral music wasn't quite as catchy.

Thank you for your response to our recent tender. After due deliberation, we must regretfully inform you that we have decided not to implement your interesting plan for restructuring and downsizing the afterlife.

Our accounting department confirms your statement that it would be more cost-effective only to retain Hell and wind up operations in PurgFor the Celebrity Death Match Review Tournament, The Divine Comedy versus 1984

Gabriel, Michael and RaphaelCelestial ArchitectsEternity

Dear Mr. O'Brien,

Thank you for your response to our recent tender. After due deliberation, we must regretfully inform you that we have decided not to implement your interesting plan for restructuring and downsizing the afterlife.

Our accounting department confirms your statement that it would be more cost-effective only to retain Hell and wind up operations in Purgatory and Paradise. This would, however, directly conflict with our mission statement, which involves offering the chance of salvation to each and every soul. Our senior counsel, based on numerous precedents, contests your claim that this is in principle equivalent with "a boot grinding a human face, forever".

We appreciate your ingenious compromise suggestion that the "integrated afterlife experience", as you describe it, could be administered by a board chaired by the late Pope Boniface VIII, and accept that this offer was made in good faith. None the less, our feeling is that Signor Boniface is not in all respects a suitable person to fill this role.

The above notwithstanding, we are agreeable to implementing several of the specific points listed in Appendix C which concern improvements to the current structure of Hell. In particular, we will shortly be commencing an upgrade programme according to which the jaws of His Infernal Majesty will be substantially expanded. We are pleased to inform you that the work will be completed well before your own demise, according to our records scheduled for April 19, 1993, and we have already reserved a place for you next to Signor Cassius.

MannyLimbo is absolutely not the same as Purgatory! It's the first circle of Hell, where the Unbaptized and the Virtuous Heathen go. Hence the title of SolLimbo is absolutely not the same as Purgatory! It's the first circle of Hell, where the Unbaptized and the Virtuous Heathen go. Hence the title of Solzhenitsyn's novel....more
Oct 29, 2011 02:22PM

Ian KlappenskoffIf you start a band called "The Virtuous Heathens", I promise to buy all your albums.
Oct 29, 2011 02:35PM

How in the World (or Inferno or Purgatorio or Paradiso) am I supposed to review this work?

I could review the edition and translator, though I have nothing else to compare them against. Ciardi's notes at the end of each canto are always illuminating, sometimes funny and occasionally self-deprecating. I chuckled at his humor (sharing those particular notes with my husband) and was appreciative of Ciardi's honesty whenever he used a rhyme-forced addition, as well as the instance or two when he askHow in the World (or Inferno or Purgatorio or Paradiso) am I supposed to review this work?

I could review the edition and translator, though I have nothing else to compare them against. Ciardi's notes at the end of each canto are always illuminating, sometimes funny and occasionally self-deprecating. I chuckled at his humor (sharing those particular notes with my husband) and was appreciative of Ciardi's honesty whenever he used a rhyme-forced addition, as well as the instance or two when he asked the reader to forgive his less-than-perfect poetry. He's both thorough and entertaining.

Use any adjective you'd like and it's bound to fit at least one part of Dante's work: condemnatory, fearful and exuberant; horrific, trepidatious and jubilant; political, personal and universal: there's really no point in my going on, especially now that I've used three sets of three.

I'd love to know what kind of person Dante became after finishing this work. He had to be changed in the course of its writing; it would be sad (and too human of him) to think otherwise.

By the time I entered twelfth grade, I knew that public school had failed me. I don’t know what your high school was like, but mine was fermented shit on a stick.

I’ve always loved reading. In English class, whenever we started a new unit, I was thrilled. Because that meant we were going to read a new book. Never mind that the books were pretty much guaranteed to suck ass, the allure of an unread text is just too much for me.

Inferno was no disappointment, even then. This poetic vision of Hell haBy the time I entered twelfth grade, I knew that public school had failed me. I don’t know what your high school was like, but mine was fermented shit on a stick.

I’ve always loved reading. In English class, whenever we started a new unit, I was thrilled. Because that meant we were going to read a new book. Never mind that the books were pretty much guaranteed to suck ass, the allure of an unread text is just too much for me.

Inferno was no disappointment, even then. This poetic vision of Hell had me entranced from the first page. Sure I didn’t know what was going on and I had no idea who Dante was meeting (that part is still true), but that couldn’t overpower the fact that we were reading about the devil and demons and sex and dismemberment.

I didn’t realize that I lived in a predominantly Christian community until it was too late. The views and values of this religion slithered their way into my education like a pair of ass-flavored snakes. When I learned about Inferno, I learned about it from a Christian perspective. The teacher was Christian, his students were Christian. And I knew no better.

As it turns out, Inferno seems to have a lot more to do with ancient philosophy than it does Christian imagery. That’s not to say that the book wasn’t highly influenced by the author’s religious beliefs, but that ain’t the only guy in the ring. I had no idea that the levels of Hell were based on the classes of sin imagined by Aristotle.

And it wasn’t until years later that I learned Inferno was just the first of three parts of this work. As such, the organization of the underworld never made sense to me. Why was that not explained? It seems so relevant. When Satan fell from Heaven, he plummeted to the center of the Earth, carving out this huge conical hole. The force of his fall resulted in a mountain on the other side of the Earth (equal and opposite reactions and all). Without knowing this, how is it possible to understand the end of Inferno where Dante has ventured to the center of the Earth and climbs Satan to escape? How does that make sense? Skeevy old fuckbag of an English teacher.

So there’s a mountain in South America that was created by the fall of Satan, and that’s Purgatory. At the top of Purgatory is the Garden of Eden. Arguably, Christianity doesn’t become all that relevant until the second part of the Comedy! There are people out there smarter than me who I’m sure will contest this, but hey. This is the impression I’ve formed.

I read Inferno for the second time in college. Guess what I didn’t learn.

Sure--why not write a trite, pithy review of one of the great works of Western Literature? Fuck it! Yes, it's beautifully poetic, but Dante is also intolerably self-righteous and hilariously bitter in it, skewering, roasting, and tearing to pieces (quite literally) his detractors, enemies, and some people that he maybe just didn't like much. The tortures are sometimes hilarious and in no way biblical...it is disturbing to think that people used to believe a lot of this silliness...oh, and that sSure--why not write a trite, pithy review of one of the great works of Western Literature? Fuck it! Yes, it's beautifully poetic, but Dante is also intolerably self-righteous and hilariously bitter in it, skewering, roasting, and tearing to pieces (quite literally) his detractors, enemies, and some people that he maybe just didn't like much. The tortures are sometimes hilarious and in no way biblical...it is disturbing to think that people used to believe a lot of this silliness...oh, and that some people still do. Although surely most modern Catholics (excepting, perhaps, the Appenines) don't think that the herds of Satan's chattel are so swollen with old Italian aristocracy. Funny to think of the same old people STILL being tortured now...maybe even Cain, and of course, Old Scratch himself, still locked in that sheet of ice. I'd be mad too. I think I'd probably cut a Vanni Fucci figure in hell...you're going to be tortured forever anyway...why not give god the finger and scream and fart every minute of the day and let everybody know what a bastard he is? The losers falling into line and cowering under the black pitch might as well grow some balls...

AnthonyThat fact that you find it disturbing these people believed this "silliness" is an indication that you do not understand how to read from their view pThat fact that you find it disturbing these people believed this "silliness" is an indication that you do not understand how to read from their view point in their historic context. You are trying to impose your current world view on their thoughts and beliefs instead of accepting the book is written for Dante's contemporaries....more
May 18, 2013 12:12PM

I have travelled a goodly distance since I last read the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, and what a long strange trip its been. So, it was with an introspective bit of drollness that I embarked on this reread.

I was fascinated with Inferno as a teenager and between Dante Alighieri and Robert Smith/Rimbaud it is, frankly, nothing short of a miracle that I didn't put enough reasons together to wind-up as a fleshy tree with harpies perched in my branches somewhere in the lower circles of hell--ifI have travelled a goodly distance since I last read the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, and what a long strange trip its been. So, it was with an introspective bit of drollness that I embarked on this reread.

I was fascinated with Inferno as a teenager and between Dante Alighieri and Robert Smith/Rimbaud it is, frankly, nothing short of a miracle that I didn't put enough reasons together to wind-up as a fleshy tree with harpies perched in my branches somewhere in the lower circles of hell--if you catch my drift. Yeah, I was one tortured soul...

Now, I seem to have arrived in the dread "Existance Age" of my life. In evidence, I need only cite my thinning hair, second mortgage, life insurance, and All American guilt complex. This is also why it's taking me longer than necessary to read Richard Ford's Independence Day--each line just seems like something I'm thinking, and it's hard to be objective with the reading and view it simply as a book. And, it may very well explain why, as I listened to The Divine Comedy with this audiobook edition, I found Purgatorio so fascinating--when as a teenager I couldn't skim through it fast enough.

The Divine Comedy is more of a journey than a book, and as a journey it has stages and waypoints... also its not a trip everyone needs to take. I, for one, never plan on visiting Meca or for that matter, the Mormon General Conference; they're just not my kinds of trips. But, having grow-up in a Televangelist Supercult, The Divine Comedy is just the right kind of retrospective for me. Reasons are abundant but are typified by the way the book helps me look objectively at my spiritual life.

Here is the short list: First, according to Dante, pretty much everybody in hell is Italian and Catholic; second, my tattoo fantasies of the illustrations by Gustave Dore; third, the striking absense of a bathroom break; fourth the paragraph-long metaphores which fill each canto in the same way a bazaar of guillemots might fill something bigger than a breadbox but smaller than a dinghy if there was but some form of guillemot filling aparatus or perhaps a working decoy; fifth, placing people I dislike in different levels of hell--BTW I've decided Walter Kirn is my arch-enemy; and sixth (but hardly last) the unanswerable question of why Dante is obsessed with a woman who isn't his wife and figures her in the seat of grace while the woman he's married to is no doubt fixing his meals, cleaning his dishes, and caring for his kids, while he is writing the Divine Comedy (like some kind of Catholic Penthouse Forum Letter) and this is somehow OK because he still makes it to heaven.

I'll be honest, I've never been able to finish The Divine Comedy. I get to wandering around in Paradiso like a redneck in Walmart and keep on loosing my place due to profound boredom (unlike a redneck in Walmart). Afterall, "Heaven is a place," to quote David Byrne, "a place where nothing ever happens." Maybe someday Paradiso will be the part I just can't get enough of, but for now I'm content with my life in purgatory. I kind of like the idea that I can impress people just by casting a shadow and meeting old friends in really uncomfortable situations....more

Matt EvansGreat recommendation, Ben. I've been looking for a good Audio CD version of "Divine Comedy". Also, I just finished Beowulf (I'm reading the canonizedGreat recommendation, Ben. I've been looking for a good Audio CD version of "Divine Comedy". Also, I just finished Beowulf (I'm reading the canonized epics in order, oldest to most recent), so the timing is perfect....more
Aug 20, 2008 09:46AM

At the mid-point of the path through life, I found Myself lost in a wood so dark, the way Ahead was blotted out. The keening sound I still make shows how hard it is to say How harsh and bitter that place felt to me— Merely to think of it renews the fear— So bad that death by only a degree Could possibly be worse. As you shall hear, It led to good things too, eventually,But there and then I saw no sign of those, And can’t say even now how I had come To be there, stunned a[Clive James translation]

At the mid-point of the path through life, I found Myself lost in a wood so dark, the way Ahead was blotted out. The keening sound I still make shows how hard it is to say How harsh and bitter that place felt to me— Merely to think of it renews the fear— So bad that death by only a degree Could possibly be worse. As you shall hear, It led to good things too, eventually,But there and then I saw no sign of those, And can’t say even now how I had come To be there, stunned and following my nose Away from the straight path.

I'd just got round to having a look through this new translation. After reading the above how could I not keep going? It was near enough the perfect time for me to read it, and I bolted the thing whole in 24 hours. Joanna Kavenna's Inglorious - a modern existential novel unfortunately mis-jacketed as chicklit, which I read earlier this year - took "Dante's mid-point of life", half threescore years and ten, as its starting point. Without that accidental prequel, I may not have been so primed. (And as long as I can remember I'd seen 35 as the big crunch in the way that most people seem to see 30. Possibly the fault of Martin Amis, whom I read in my teens and who makes it a pivotal age for some characters - perhaps he took it from Dante.)

Best of all, this doesn't feel like a translation: this is so good it feels like poetry itself. I've read quite a bit of translated poetry this year and the only other edition that had this effect was Edna St. Vincent Millay's Fleurs du Mal. Perhaps neither is the closest to the original; that's not, perhaps, the point: as a reading experience rather than an academic crib-sheet, each is wonderful. Of course there's the occasional off-note here - how could there not be in 500 pages? - but this really is a virtuoso work, and I think the fuss is justified.

It was for a long while impossible to correlate this beautiful poetry with that loud, sarky Australian bloke off the telly. (Who also had the temerity to write multiple volumes of memoirs - a practice which, as I remembered when I read Maya Angelou's Caged Bird recently, as a kid I seem to have been brought up to look down on; egotism should not be so overt.) That perceived incongruity, the sense of "does not compute", is a compliment, really: he's able to assume different registers so completely that I could have thought he was two separate people. However! Many translators or classic authors include innuendo which appears to be unintentional. (In an interview, the ubiquitous Pevear & Volokhonsky even referred to being confronted about this by an editor and insisting on retaining it although - IMO - it's distracting.) In Clive James' Divine Comedy there are occasional pieces of innuendo, subtly associated words and sensuality which look much too carefully placed to be anything but deliberate. A writer who was mischievously grinning at it too and who understands the skill of it - wonderful!

Readers who appreciate that sort of thing will probably also enjoy the little references the translator includes. Sort-of anachronistic, but not so in terms of producing a stunningly erudite epic poem which communicates with its readers. (In any case, there was no Divine Comedy translation into English until the late 18th century - if that's the only language you read well enough, it's futile to pretend towards the entirely authentick.) A few favourites I spotted: marvellous boy (Thomas Chatterton), misshapes, Bedazzled (with a capital), the fault in our stars, pale fire, late and soon (Wordsworth), the bit that put 'The Fool on the Hill' in my head though it's probably not close enough to the lyrics to quote. And, I've no idea if Clive James has any acquaintance with contemporary superhero comics, but: the sheer abundance of their flying - marvel, now – .

My previous experience of reading Dante was also a little unconventional, though not in terms of reading speed: about 15 years ago I read the Penguin Mark Musa Inferno and about half of Purgatorio, mostly in stonkingly unconducive settings like a music festival and working in a nightclub cloakroom. (My powers of concentration were never as good as you might infer from this. After all, I did give up.) I don't have the Musa editions to hand; whilst I do remember them being more interesting than expected, there wasn't this scale of wow. Whether that's because of me changing, or a better book, or both - dunno. Though of course after this, I'd recommend the Clive James to others who've previously abandoned Dante and wouldn't mind another go.

The Picador edition of the Clive James also has no notes. (Though some extra background info is incorporated into the text of the poem.) It's so wonderfully freeing and immediate*. I nearly always opt for notes but - and I'd hardly let anyone get away with this - I loved being told that for once I couldn't really have them. That's all very well for you to say, you're an ex-Catholic who's studied medieval history. True, but I am quite rusty and the history is a bit earlier than the stuff I know best; this was more a case of recognising lots of names whilst not being sure what they did. Anyway, on the subject of the Italian Wars (15th-16th century version, but not dissimilar to the delightfully named Guelphs and Ghibellines) I never met a tutor who didn't acknowledge that they were just a dull and fiddly background to more interesting things. Much of the time I simply let the poetry flow; poetry does that. It's straight into the vein; felt rather than thought; for me reading poetry is like being on an escalator where prose is climbing a staircase.

When I wanted to look up things behind the book's back, the Wikipedia list of cultural references in The Divine Comedy covered nearly everything I wanted to know. (With the exception of: William Longsword who was kept in a cage - and none of the chaps so named elsewhere on Wiki have this in their biogs; some saints mentioned in Paradiso - perhaps the Wikipedian gave up near the end; and one that you need abstruse knowledge to query in the first place, Dante saying Aquarius is near the beginning of the year - the English year began on 25th March.)

So, in brief (!), the three parts.

InfernoThis is why some people tag TDC as Fantasy! It is so much like all those adventure-film journeys into molten pits with monsters. And often it made me think about how lucky I was as a child to be told in religious contexts "nobody really believes in hell any more". (Ranting old Irish priests were irrelevant and could be safely ignored). I've since known people who, in childhood, did live in constant terror of hell when they did the smallest thing wrong, experiences which make understandable Hitchens' ostensibly hyperbolic description of religion as child abuse. Dante's Inferno makes me understand anew, more deeply than ever, why and what you might be terrified of. I was hit full-on by the idea that millions of people lived their whole lives feeling that this was all true and certain, and how horrific that was - most of all that they felt there was no escape, that death may well not be an end to suffering, that extreme suffering may never end. The medieval mindset: so much trauma and brutality and loss all around. And that formed such bizarre logic, was so unforgiving and vengeful in an Old Testament style. Not what plenty of people would colloquially call "Christian" now: eternal torture for torturers, as well as for plenty of people who by many modern standards had done (practically) nothing wrong at all. (My theological history is rusty and generalised.)

PurgatorioAt first it perhaps doesn't seem so exciting, or so visual, as Inferno, and the groups of residents aren't quite so clearly labelled; the poetry, though, especially the beginnings of most cantos, is noticeably beautiful. It is evident that this was a civilisation which for the most part believed in learning and change through fear and punishment: The sin of envy meets its scourge In this round, and of that scourge every thong Flaying that disposition must emerge From love. And thus the curb that speaks against The sin must sing the virtue.Feel sad for medieval people spending their whole lives that way with no choice. (Also that I'm being patronising and imposing values of l.C20th western psychology.) Wonder if many of them would seem wildly disruptive or severe, and violent and fearful if they materialised now; Genghis Khan in Bill and Ted was kind of an extreme example - like that but a bit less.

Whilst its main theme is almost as universal as Christianity, a lot of TDC is about Dante's mates or people who'd have been on the medieval equivalent of the regional news in his area. (A re-read after revising some of the history would be interesting.) Clive James' introduction mentions that even soon after publication many readers needed glosses because they didn't know who all these folk were either. In this respect, Dante is much like (the bawdier, briefer, Frencher, later) Francois Villon - and both big their own talent up in their verses almost as much as the average rapper. Later medieval european poet schtick? I'd have to read more to find out. The range of references recalls the smallness of even an educated person's world before printing: the local, the Biblical, the Classical; other countries are represented only by renowned kings, warriors and saints, or vague stereotypes.

ParadisoReading The Divine Comedy was also a journey upward in mood (surely intended to inspire the original audience to greater religiosity). The horrors of hell by now seemed quite far away, in another world. The final section was also a blast from the past, personally - not just because the story of a journey into the underworld is one of the oldest around, Gilgamesh and Orpheus to name but two predecessors. As I may have mentioned before - or perhaps it's only in the mega-posts about God is not Great that I never finish or actually post - I had a voluntary phase of being quite strongly religious, aged about 7-9. (Its main focus was obsessive re-reading of Sixty Saints for Girls by Joan Windham.) During this time I would experience a sort of high from thoughts of religious devotion and aspiration, or from solitary prayer and chosen small self-denials, and regardless of actual belief, that high is occasionally re-awakened now by works of art about Christian worship. They don't even have to mean it - one of the strongest effects I can recall was from Luis Buñuel's satirical Simón del desierto . I experienced it again whilst reading Paradiso: buzzy calm, a liking for certain mild asceticisms, a background sense of safety and devotion, breathing changes and all. The poetry was still beautiful but I wasn't reading it as quite the same nitpicky person, more beatific. What I did notice was how effectively the verse conveyed someone trying to describe something too amazing to describe: it really was as if he'd seen it, not only imagined it. The last third of Paradiso, though not so much the very end cantos, is really lots of ways of saying "WOW". I couldn't help but be charmed by it; it's nice to see someone made truly happy by a thing even if I disagree with it.

Perhaps the most distinctively medieval-European part of Dante's Paradise (and a bizarre one to many readers, probably) is courtly love and Beatrice herself, that the loved one is ranked with saints and silently worshipped like one - and that that's absolutely fine. No cries of "idolatry!", or "unhealthy!". I for one find it very sweet, because, most importantly he never bothers her about it. And having had somewhat similar tendencies of my own towards a few lovers (a pattern almost certainly rooted in the relationship of those girl saints to Jesus in the aforementioned book), it was just nice to see someone else on that narrow little wavelength for once.

Another aspect of Catholicism I very rarely think or hear about now is the geekiness: lots of names of things to learn and remember. There are plenty of saints mentioned in Paradiso (really??), some of whom I'd not heard of for a long time, and I recalled for the first time in ages how saints were, in childhood, another thing with neatly categorisable attributes to learn, and spot (on pictures in different churches, for example)- in much the same way as birds, animals and cars were. (I used to be such a geek about cars; it's easy to do when you're a kid because you're nearer the height of the badges, model names, and engine capacity labels, and once you've started remembering those hooks it's easy to stick things on them.) Anyway, unfortunately none of these lesser-known saints were on the Wikipedia list and they needed separate searches.

This ability to understand parts of religion from the inside is one of the reasons I have difficulties with stricter parts of atheist doctrine. I find this understanding useful as a way of empathising with or just not much minding the devout, (who, let's face it, are not disappearing from the world any time soon) and it was probably good training for life in general to spend an hour or two a week being patiently bored with people I disagreed with in RE lessons and church services, once I'd decided, aged 10, that religion wasn't for me after all.

Obviously The Divine Comedy, even if it made me emotionally re-experience some of the sensations of religion, didn't convert me back. The triumphal feeling though, of "Yessss! I've actually finished that" (dizzying and surreal because it was unplanned and so swift) was tempered with something calmer and more benevolent. This is a lovely and astoundingly skilful translation simply as poetry, and I look forward to looking back through it.

*Another reviewer put it better: " the freedom and luxury of just reading the damn thing as a narrative is so exhilarating"....more

I am so glad for the Divine Comedy and Decameron group for providing the structure and encouragement which provided the impetus for my finally reading this classic! I am also very pleased that I decided to read John Ciardi's translation as his synopsis and notes added immeasurably to my reading.

While personally I found Dante's travel's through Hell occasionally difficult, the Purgatorio and Paradiso (except for the first few scholarly cantos) flowed with beautiful poetry. And through it all, DaI am so glad for the Divine Comedy and Decameron group for providing the structure and encouragement which provided the impetus for my finally reading this classic! I am also very pleased that I decided to read John Ciardi's translation as his synopsis and notes added immeasurably to my reading.

While personally I found Dante's travel's through Hell occasionally difficult, the Purgatorio and Paradiso (except for the first few scholarly cantos) flowed with beautiful poetry. And through it all, Dante maintained his amazing, and consistent, vision.

Diane BarnesI have read The Decameron and really enjoyed it. It's a very accessible read, and at times very raunchy. Not that that's why I liked it!
May 15, 2014 06:56AM

SueDiane wrote: "I have read The Decameron and really enjoyed it. It's a very accessible read, and at times very raunchy. Not that that's why I liked it!Diane wrote: "I have read The Decameron and really enjoyed it. It's a very accessible read, and at times very raunchy. Not that that's why I liked it!"

(tee hee) of course not!I'm looking forward to it. I'm assuming it will be a bit more "approachable" than the Divine Comedy"....more
May 15, 2014 02:59PM

For CELEBRITY DEATH MATCH PURPOSES ONLY: The Complete Tales and Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh versus The Divine Comedy

*More doggerel than verse, but for what it's worth...

I. Inferno

Into a dark and gloomy woodStrolled the little bear and his friends.They found a cave and by it stoodAnd wondered if it did descendTo hell or rise to paradise.Would this match see them sacrificed?

The circles had been so designedTo damn the souls who lived in sin.And each were thus to zones consignedTo suffer punishment witFor CELEBRITY DEATH MATCH PURPOSES ONLY: The Complete Tales and Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh versus The Divine Comedy

*More doggerel than verse, but for what it's worth...

I. Inferno

Into a dark and gloomy woodStrolled the little bear and his friends.They found a cave and by it stoodAnd wondered if it did descendTo hell or rise to paradise.Would this match see them sacrificed?

The circles had been so designedTo damn the souls who lived in sin.And each were thus to zones consignedTo suffer punishment within,Tailored to what best befittedTheir hearts black and very wicked.

Anna and Jake do tempests roil;Imps lash Humbert eternally;Macbeth's in bloody rivers boiled;While Marlowe burns infernally.And stuck in ice up to his face,Is Winston lost to Heaven's grace.

Milady in a circle plods;Her gashes heal then bleed again.And for his worship of false gods,Frederick's tomb is wreathed in flame.As for Jason's life of ire,Now he fights in endless mire.

II. Purgatory

Pooh and friends most quickly madeTheir way through all nine pits of hell.It was with happy hearts they badeThe fearful, frightful place farewell."To Purgatory we now must wend,Where Christian souls do make amends."

A ship of souls just then appeared,And off to Purgatory sailed they.Pooh met Marcel who said he’d fearedFor sodomy in hell he’d stay. Pooh shook his little head and said, "To Purgatory you go instead.”

Hamlet sighed in flowery vale,While Sherlock's bowed down by a rock."For pride," said he, his visage pale,As of his sins did he take stock.Yossarion wept from eyes enlaced,While burning smoke stung Edmond’s face.

A light shines down. Is it the sun?The air vibrates with beating wings And hallelujahs loudly sung, Encomiums for the risen King. As heavenward he does ascend So rises Winnie and his friends.

The crystal spheres sing out in praise, For those who let love in their lives.Rochester, Pierre and Darcy gave Their hearts to those who’d be their wives,While Don Quixote and Frodo, too Did show a love full, strong, and true.

The Joads do Heaven’s realm inherit,For having eked out lives of pain.And childish innocence doth merit Heartsease for Pippi, Huck, and Jane.The Little Prince his home has found:The stars with happiness resound.

The tiger with the Lamb does play, While Scout and Alice skip along. “For every bear must have his day,”So ring their voices out in song. At last the Living Rose he sees,All buzz’ed round with hunny bees.

IV. Coda

And thus we end this final roundThe match’s winner has been found.Who’s left you say. Do not wonder.The answer’s in the very structureThis long review is written in.This poem points to who must win. The champion I declare to be It’s Dante’s Divine Comedy. ...more

I should give a quick intro and say that I rarely EVER, EVER re-read a book. I should also mention that 3 years ago I had never cracked Dante's Divine Comedy. Now, I am finishing the Divine Comedy for the 3rd time. I've read Pinsky's translation of the Inferno. I've read Ciardi. I've flirted with Mandelbaum and danced with Hollander, but from Canto 1 of Inferno/Hell to Canto XXXIII of Paradiso/Heaven, I can't say I've read a better version than the Clive JamPlumbing the crucible of happenstance.

I should give a quick intro and say that I rarely EVER, EVER re-read a book. I should also mention that 3 years ago I had never cracked Dante's Divine Comedy. Now, I am finishing the Divine Comedy for the 3rd time. I've read Pinsky's translation of the Inferno. I've read Ciardi. I've flirted with Mandelbaum and danced with Hollander, but from Canto 1 of Inferno/Hell to Canto XXXIII of Paradiso/Heaven, I can't say I've read a better version than the Clive James translation. He replaced the terza rima (**A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C, D-E-D-E-E** a measure hard to write without poetic stretch marks in English) with the quatrain, and in doing so made the English translation his own. It gives the Divine Comedy the verbal energy and the poetry that makes inferior translations a slog and makes Dante so damn difficult to translate well. A mediocre translation might capture the stripes but lose the tiger. Clive James pulled off a master translation of one of the greatest works of art in any medium -- ever.________________

Dante's Divine Comedy is the story of the soul’s journey from the depths of despair to pure enlightenment, and you don't have to be a Catholic or even religious to be awed and inspired by it. If you ignore all the academic dust that has settled on this astounding creation over the seven hundred years since it was written, and imagine it more as an adventure movie with better special effects than The Matrix and with a deeper message than The Seventh Seal, you'll set off on a journey across spaceDante's Divine Comedy is the story of the soul’s journey from the depths of despair to pure enlightenment, and you don't have to be a Catholic or even religious to be awed and inspired by it. If you ignore all the academic dust that has settled on this astounding creation over the seven hundred years since it was written, and imagine it more as an adventure movie with better special effects than The Matrix and with a deeper message than The Seventh Seal, you'll set off on a journey across space and time that you’ll never forget.

The great love of Dante’s life was Beatrice, whom he first glimpsed in Florence in 1274, when she was eight years old and he was nine, and he spent the rest of his life idolising her, long after her marriage and early death. He wrote his La Vita Nuova in praise of her beauty and purity, and it is one of the world’s greatest romantic poems, but he felt that it didn’t do her justice, and he went on to compose the Divine Comedy as his unprecedented and unsurpassed monument to her. He started it when he was 29 years old and finished it just before his death 27 years later, in 1321, and it hasn’t been out of print since.

Dante, approaching middle-age, descends into Hell and is guided through the terrible circles of damned souls by the poet Virgil, and past Satan himself, who stands in ice to his waist, before attaining Purgatory. It is in Purgatory that souls who escaped Hell are cleansed and made ready for promotion to Paradise. At the peak of Mount Purgatory, Virgil – who lived before the Incarnation and can go no farther – hands Dante over to Beatrice, and together they make their way to the Godhead. Dante spends eternity with the girl he first saw and fell in love with 47 years earlier.

As well as reading it as homage to Love and the soul’s struggle towards perfection, it is jam-packed with gossip and details about the people and the politics of Florence at the time. Dante is often criticised for peopling Hell with his enemies and Paradise with his friends, but whatever the case he left us with a huge range of vividly drawn characters that really bring those times to life. And naturally the sinners tend to be a lot more fun than the saints. As in the Canterbury Tales, we can recognise these people easily today: the devious politicians, the star-crossed lovers, the dictators and gang bosses, the holier-than-thou brigade and the ones who just couldn’t make up their minds. If human nature has changed at all since Dante, it’s only been for the worse.

This is a book that has exerted an incredible influence down the centuries, especially on artists. If your imagination is a bit jaded, just type ‘Dante Durer’ into Google to come up with fantastic engravings from the Renaissance master, or ‘Dante Blake’ to view William Blake’s more restrained and impressionistic but no less powerful impressions. There is no shortage of English translations, either, the best to date being the new one by Robert Pinsky....more

Now do you want me to tell the truth? I thought I was reading this review when in fDavid wrote: "That makes me feel almost glad to be alive, my dear."

Now do you want me to tell the truth? I thought I was reading this review when in fact I was reading Vita Nuova. So if you could just picture this comment about that review. I found it really rather confusing when I read your Vita Nuova review and didn't understand why it was exactly the same as your Divine Comedy. I hope this is all crystal clear....more
updated
Jun 30, 2010 08:31AM

DavidThey're not the same at all. I'll bet you ten quid and a bottle of claret.
Jun 30, 2010 08:36AM

T. S. Eliot: "Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them, there is no third."

Dante's magnus opus exceeds my weak grasp to illuminate. If you are part of the Western world, you have been colored by this book, whether you have read it or not. So many authors have drawn upon the imagery from Dante's work, and used so many ideas from him. Not to mention how Dante took poetry to new heights and new places, using common tongue from his part of Italy instead Latin, he weaves in the poetT. S. Eliot: "Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them, there is no third."

Dante's magnus opus exceeds my weak grasp to illuminate. If you are part of the Western world, you have been colored by this book, whether you have read it or not. So many authors have drawn upon the imagery from Dante's work, and used so many ideas from him. Not to mention how Dante took poetry to new heights and new places, using common tongue from his part of Italy instead Latin, he weaves in the poetry and songs of the ancients, science and theology of his time, innovative storytelling techniques, history, the Old and New Testaments, cosmology, and an unabashed sense of poetical prowess. Dante's persona in the poem goes through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Each stage is worth books of commentary and discussion, but suffice it to say that going through with Dante isn't like anything else I have read.

There is so much in there, I don't know where to start or what else I can add that hasn't been said before.

This one leaves a mark.

Update Feb, 13, 2013. I bumped up the rating to 5 stars, since I still find myself thinking about the book, finding relevant connections to it, and allusions to it. I'm not sure it's possible to over estimate this book and see just how large of an influence it has had....more

Cue aerial shot of two women walking in a green leafy park. One shouts up to the camera that appears to be hovering about fifteen feet above her head

SUE: Hello Ladies and Gentlemen! And welcome to the grand final of The Great British Bake-off!

Camera swoops down to eye-level. We see these two:

[image error]

MEL: Yes, the Great British Bake-off has taken us on an incredible journey over the past eight weeks. We've seen poisoned cakes, exploding cakes, flying cakes and ones that never left the ground. We've had four elimination rounds and now there are only two candidates left - it's time for the grand finale!

SUE: As usual, Mel will be the warm friendly presenter who empathizes with the candidates until they are lulled into revealing how they actually wish death upon their fellow contestants, despite all the sweet chirrupings of respect for the others.

MEL: Yes, indeed, and Sue, the slightly scary lezzy comedian with too much black eye make-up will make drily sardonic remarks, giving a post-modern ironic spin to the proceedings, leaving the distinct impression that even the producers realize what a daft concept competitive baking really is.

SUE: Then, as usual, we have our two judges. [image error]Paul Hollywood manages to be both sinister and remarkably boring: he will be trotting out the usual cliches later (pushing the boat out, it's all about the presentation/taste/bake), while Mary Berry looks a poppet, but in fact is the most censorious of all: one lift of her eyebrow is enough to reduce most candidates to a gibbering wreck.But let's meet our remaining candidates!!

Cut to the large tent that houses the workstations. Winnie-the-Pooh and Dante are standing behind their benches looking tense and ready to go.

SUE: Your task today is to bake for a street party to which all the previous candidates are invited.

Cut to outside shot: Long trestle tables are set up. Apart from Jane Eyre, who is helping Mr Rochester to a seat, and Mary Poppins who is primly arranging her hat and carpet bag, all the other contestants grin and wave inanely to camera.

SUE: So candidates: BAKE!

Mel and Sue move over to where Winnie-the-Pooh has begun work.

[image error]

SUE: Ah, Winnie-the-Pooh. Would I be correct in thinking that honey will play a leading role in your productions?

W-t-P: Tum de tum. Now which jar shall I use today?

[image error]

MEL: Winnie, what are you making today?

W-t-P: Well, I'll be making my signature honey loaf cake, and then I wanted to try something a bit more adventurous, so I went to see Kanga. But all she had in her store cupboard was malt and syrup of figs. I don't think that I would like syrup of figs, or its effect, but it did inspire me to give a nod to my Italian rival, so today I'm making a kind of sweet filled pizza: two layers of thin crispy pastry filled with honey-sweetened ricotta cheese, and then covered in slices of fresh figs.

Both Mel and Sue are speechless. Professional presenters on the telly box, and speechless, tsk tsk. Meanwhile the camera man has keeled over from sheer boredomCut to two hours later (the director is dying of boredom too)

SUE: How are you doing Winnie?

W-t-P: Well, I have to admit that the lack of thumbs is a bit of a handicap: my pastry rolling technique isn't too bad, but I'm afraid there isn't going to be much decoration, I can't do any of the fiddly stuff.

[image error]which, it must be admitted, bears a striking resemblance to the cake in the background here:

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SUE: Hmmm, well, all appearances would suggest that there is no contest, but let's see what the judges have to say.

PAUL: Well, it's all about pushing the boat out.... (Groans are heard. Cut swiftly to the street party outside where Winnie-the-Pooh has joined all his friends from the Hundred Acre Wood and Dante is standing next to Virgil and Beatrice.)

Wild jubilation, Dante and Virgil are jumping up and down in each other's arms, Piglet is the first to come and congratulate him, etc etc etc...

Note: No animals were harmed in the making of this review.

Note: I know that Dante probably wouldn't be speaking modern Italian, but I'm afraid I can't do 14th Century Italian.

Note: Up to the very last, I didn't know myself where this was going. I thought that Dante wouldn't finish in time, his project seemed a bit over-ambitious, it might all collapse under the weight, and Winnie's humble offerings would be unspectacular but tasty. But Dante pulled it off in the end. In the end, a work of such complexity just had to have the edge on something plain and homely.

Speaking of Dante, Erich Auerbach stated, "we come to the conclusion that this man used language to discover the world anew." (Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, 183)

Psychological development of subjects in literature is far from the exclusive technique of the novel because authors like Dante were exploring it long before Cervantes. Though the Divine Comedy is a didactic poem, composed between 1308-1320, perhaps most recognized for Dante's creation of mortal terror asSpeaking of Dante, Erich Auerbach stated, "we come to the conclusion that this man used language to discover the world anew." (Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, 183)

Psychological development of subjects in literature is far from the exclusive technique of the novel because authors like Dante were exploring it long before Cervantes. Though the Divine Comedy is a didactic poem, composed between 1308-1320, perhaps most recognized for Dante's creation of mortal terror as well as revelatory sublimity, the pilgrim experiences a remarkable amount of self-reported personal and spiritual growth on his journey. His incredible spiritual growth in Paradiso is bestowed upon him, but he struggles with doubts and questions up to that point throughout all three canticles. As a reader, it is really incredible to join with him in his grief over his city becoming something he doesn't like while at the same time lamenting his banishment from said city, the state of the church, longing for a lost love, wondering why there is such evil in the world if there is a god, trying to represent something real and lasting artistically, and trying to understand God's logic with issues such as free will and preordination. Essentially, the final answer in the Divine Comedy to many of these questions is that God is perfect and whatever doesn't seem perfect is something we cannot understand. Though I don't have the kind of faith to accept this answer or find it useful, I thrilled as a reader with the way he continued to ask these questions as he went through Infierno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.

Since there are autobiographical aspects to his work, I feel comfortable adding some things that have happened in my life that drew me to this book in the first place and greatly influenced my reading of the work. My husband and I have been on a journey through Latin America this year and I was reading the book on the second half of the journey that began after we spent two months with my sisters dealing with my parents' estate. My father died in his sleep this past December two years and two months after my mother died. He was still very much in love with her and really never got over the pain of losing her to cancer. They were both people of faith. Now my reading buddies know why I cried when Dante saw Beatrice. I could just picture my father's spirit beholding my mother's after their long separation and him experiencing the love of God through her image. As far as the journey aspect, I enjoyed reading about Dante feeling tired from climbing up the mountain in Purgatorio while we were hiking in Torres del Paine. He's quite correct that looking back at where you have come can be inspiring.

I had issues with Infierno. Of course, it is necessary in the whole cycle but I enjoyed it least for various reasons. Generally, the whole concept of disgusting eternal punishments is just too much for me. I don't accept this as fitting the concept of a loving God. Also, some of the sins aren't sins to me such as homosexuality or having other beliefs. I really hated the depiction of Muhammed in hell - one of the most gratuitously disgusting punishments. On the other hand, it was amusing to observe how he put certain enemies or literary rivals in hell without evidence of their crimes or sins and incredibly bold to put various arguably sinister popes there. The idea that those in hell chose their own fate and probably wouldn't even like heaven was very thought provoking. Also, his arrangement of severity of crimes fascinated me. Lust and violence are much less serious than theft or treachery. Lust and violence are natural, but theft is calculated. If penal codes matched divine justice according to Dante, executives who defraud their investors would go to jail for a much longer time than murderers. Though there was plenty of fire and torture, the stillness, silence and frigidity at the very bottom of hell was perfect.

Limbo is exceedingly problematic and this is dramatized in Virgil's residence there and his very sudden return there from Purgatorio after Dante reaches Beatrice. Virgil can't reside in Paradiso because he didn't believe in Christ, even though he died before the birth of Christ, which begs the question of why someone who had no chance of knowing about Christianity should be sent to this sub-section of Hell. This question was reintroduced to my great satisfaction in Cantos XIX and XX of Paradiso. First, Dante pushes the question of why people who couldn't have known Jesus should go to hell by having the eagle, collective spirit of the souls in Jupiter, repeat a question that Dante has asked in the past:"‘A man is born in sight of Indus’ water, and there is none there to speak of Christ, . . . and he does not sin either in word or deed. He dies unbaptized and cannot receive the saving faith. What justice is it damns him? Is it his fault that he does not believe?" Paradiso, XIX, 47-52

This question still haunts him most likely because of his tenderness for Virgil and he asks it even though he knows the answer will be that he cannot possibly understand God's justice and he must simply have faith. Though I really do appreciate his question, this whole line of reasoning is very messy. Dante is, of course, saying and clearly believes that Christianity is the only true religion. He isn't saying, for example, that there could be other divine paths. He might merely be suggesting, perhaps, that if Christianity is to be universal it should be spread everywhere. I guess this is some kind of call to arms for missionaries. What's odd about this question is that there wasn't any suggestion that there were any souls from the "Indus' waters" in limbo. I only recall unbaptized babies, Greeks and Romans for the most part in limbo. None of the levels of the afterworld seem to house anyone but those from Europe, Palestine, or Arabia (Biblical and Classical world and his contemporary Europe). My conclusion is that the afterworld Dante depicts is not universal to the modern reader. Though the 'world' to him was much smaller, there is still an obvious contradiction between his question about the virtuous man from India and his afterworld.

Next, in Canto XX, Dante extends the theme of interrogating divine justice while also dramatizing a testing of faith by presenting a soul who went to hell and was brought back to life in order to become a Christian and Ripheus, a Trojan, as shining in the eyebrow of the eagle who speaks to him in the realm of Jupiter.

Here is the discussion about Ripheus."Who would believe in the erring world down there that Ripheus the Trojan would be sixth among the sacred lusters of this sphere?Now he knows grace divine to depths of bliss the world’s poor understanding cannot grasp." Paradiso, XX, 45-48

In the previous Canto, he was just told that one has to know Christ in life to be saved so it is no wonder he might be confused by this or even question God's will. He can't help but ask. "I could not bear to wait in silence there;but from my tongue burst out “How can this be?” forced by the weight of my own inner doubt." XX, 54-56

He is being tested, but the answer given reveals more of the depth or complexity of Divine Justice:Ripheus "gave all his love to justice, there on earth, and God, by grace on grace, let him foresee a vision of our redemption shining forth . . . So he believed in Christ . . . More than a thousand years before the grace of baptism was known" XX, 81-83,85

This revelation changes the rules just a bit and Dante is forced to accept it rather than attack the logical inconsistencies. The eagle concludes with a spiritual lesson connected to the story of Ripheus:"Not even we who look on God in Heaven know, as yet, how many He will choose for ecstasy.And sweet it is to lack this knowledge still, for in this good is our own good refined, willing whatever God Himself may will." XX, 88-91

In my unorthodox interpretation, this leaves an opening for Virgil to be saved in the end of days based on God's will that surpasses human understanding. Dante isn't exactly towing the party line.

Our discussion of the Divine Comedy in this goodreads groups was very much enhanced by numerous discussions of the influences of Islamic writing and Arabic scholarship on Dante's work essentially ignored by the majority of Dante scholars. I read Surat Al-'Isrā' (The Night Journey) from the Quran and could see connections to Infierno in the idea that it is the choice of the unconverted to reject Paradise and prefer Hell, but I think I need to read the Miraaj and the criticism of Palacios in order to delve deeper into this rich vein of religious writing and its literary influence. There was also a really interesting connection between Purgatorio and the Conference of Birds, a Persian Sufi text written by Farid ud-Din Attar in 1177. I have read an Uzbek version of the text translated into English and there are clear comparisons that I noted due to Dante's abundant use of imagery of birds and flight. An even more clear connection to Islam for me is that the way Dante writes about his love for Beatrice that reminds me more of the representation of God as the beloved in Sufi writing than the depiction of platonic love by Medieval troubadours. The Divine Comedy can be interpreted as a love allegory. His love for Beatrice is a manifestation of his worship of divine revelation and also functions perfectly well as love poetry.

The accurate representation of his journey to the reader is a constant difficulty that Dante dramatizes even though he is imaging every last bit of it. Considering this, it is marvelous that the difficulty of representation is so poignant in the work. Rivalries between authors and artists centered on their ability to portray and beautify reality are alluded to at certain points. One of my favorite parts of the Divine Comedy regarding pride of talent and the difficulty of representation is in Purgatorio where Dante is awed by the divinely created marble reliefs that form the Whip of Pride depicting three scenes of great people showing humility. No human can compete with this art and he doesn't even try to fully describe it, but communicates his appreciation for it by suggesting that the angel is so real that he can almost hear him speaking. He goes further with the next relief by expresses that he is truly confused as to whether he can hear the choir singing or not. Dante's use of synesthesia is used to very good effect here and seems innovative. The question of representation constantly occurs to me when confronted with the amazingly rich tradition of visual artists painting scenes from the Divine Comedy. Here is a depiction of the reliefs in question by a daring painter.

In the end, Dante takes a mystical direction in the end of Paradiso, and he plays with time to aid him in this project as he continues to draw in the reader. At many points along his journey, especially when he was with Virgil, he was reminded that he needed to hurry up or continue to the next level, that his time was limited. This was a rather amusing detail, seemingly irrelevant for the majority of the work. However, in Canto XXXII of Paradiso I realized that the time he was left, as he approaches the Empyrean is suddenly woefully insufficient. It is painful to think of him leaving paradise. Then Dante does something wonderful in the final canto (XXXIII). Once the pilgrim gets to the Empyrean and beholds the light of God, the narration indicates a quality of timelessness in his experience with that light. It really is mystical. However, in one of the most poignant moments of the Divine Comedy, he makes it clear that he can't fully recall this momentary transcendence, or satori, any longer.

"The ravished memory swoons and falls away.As one who sees in dreams and wakes to find the emotional impression of his vision still powerful while its parts fade from his mind—" Paradiso, XXXIII, 38-40

This is an evocation of the Portuguese concept of "saudade," longing for and missing something that you can't have, but feeling the love of that thing. The difference is that Dante fully expects to behold it again after his death.

Thank you to Book Portrait for finding all of the pictures I use here....more

A few weeks ago someone asked a crowd of people if any had read the Divine Comedy. I was among several that raised their hands (okay so I was cheating, because I was in the middle of it, not finished, but that's beside the point). Then he asked which of us had actually understood it. I was surprised at that. Maybe that guy was reading a poor translation or a bad edition. This is an Everyman's Library edition, translated by Allen Mandelbaum, who won a National Book Award for his translation of ViA few weeks ago someone asked a crowd of people if any had read the Divine Comedy. I was among several that raised their hands (okay so I was cheating, because I was in the middle of it, not finished, but that's beside the point). Then he asked which of us had actually understood it. I was surprised at that. Maybe that guy was reading a poor translation or a bad edition. This is an Everyman's Library edition, translated by Allen Mandelbaum, who won a National Book Award for his translation of Virgil's Aeneid. BN.com tells me he also has a verse translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses out, which I'll have to check out some time. I have a Ted Hughes translation, but it's not in verse.

Anyway, I think most people are more familiar with the Inferno and the circles of hell, and of course there's a new video game out, too, but I don't think it's going to drive Dante's sales. The basic story, of course, is that Dante has been granted special dispensation via the intercession of his deceased love, Beatrice, to visit hell, purgatory, and heaven and then return to earth to write about it. But there is so much going on in the story that copious endnotes -- 234 pages of them -- are needed to fully grasp the details. You need the endnotes to understand some semantics, refresh your knowledge of mythology (Dante references Ovid a lot, which is why I picked up my Hughes translation this week to restart it), and for explanations of who many of the people in the story are. That's because Dante wrote about a lot of contemporary political and church leaders. He was in exile when he wrote the Comedy, and I don't fully understand the intricacies of the politics of the time, but it seems that the exile was at least in part the results of accusations of corruption. Mandelbaum says Dante hoped writing this epic poem would turn him into a kind of hero and allow him to return home.

It's hard to imagine a similar situation in contemporary times. First of all, that kind of writing is hard to find. Epic poetry doesn't get much attention. Maybe Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy, because it's been getting so much attention... but I digress. It's fun to think about, though, that literature could be the way to win your way back into society.

Bottom line, everyone should read the Divine Comedy in order to really be well-educated, and forget all the stupid English-class memorization of which sinners belong to which circles of hell. Appreciate the three books as a whole, and get a good translation with lots of notes -- like this one....more

From BBC Radio 4 - Classical Serial:Blake Ritson, David Warner and John Hurt star in Stephen Wyatt's dramatisation of Dante's epic poem - the story of one man's incredible journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise.

In Episode 1: Inferno, the thirty-five year old Dante (Blake Ritson) finds himself in the middle of a dark wood, in extreme personal and spiritual crisis. But hope of rescue appears iFrom BBC Radio 4 - Classical Serial:Blake Ritson, David Warner and John Hurt star in Stephen Wyatt's dramatisation of Dante's epic poem - the story of one man's incredible journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise.

In Episode 1: Inferno, the thirty-five year old Dante (Blake Ritson) finds himself in the middle of a dark wood, in extreme personal and spiritual crisis. But hope of rescue appears in the form of the venerable poet Virgil (David Warner), now a shade himself, who offers to lead Dante on an odyssey through the afterlife, that begins in the terrifying depths of Hell.

In Episode 2: Purgatorio, Dante (Blake Ritson) is led up Mount Purgatory by his guide, the shade of Virgil (David Warner). On their journey, they encounter numerous souls who have embarked on the difficult journey up the mountain - a journey that will eventually lead to their spiritual salvation.

In Episode 3: Paradiso, Dante's spiritual journey comes to a glorious conclusion as he (Blake Ritson) is led by Beatrice (Hattie Morahan) through the spheres of Paradise and into the presence of God himself. As they ascend, they encounter a number of souls who have also achieved blessedness.

Many years later, the older Dante (John Hurt), still in enforced exile from his beloved Florence, reflects on the episodes from his life that have inspired his great poem....more

I'm finished. Hallelujah! All in all, I liked this work. I don't pretend or assume that I "got" it. There's a lot that went zinging over my head but I got enough to get the gist of it, and I'm happy with that. There is beauty and thought in every Canto, from Inferno to Paradise. The amount of thought that Dante must have put into this idea and the amount of organizing it must have required to fix the hierarchies and levels must have been astounding and tI am reading a translation by C.H. Sisson.

I'm finished. Hallelujah! All in all, I liked this work. I don't pretend or assume that I "got" it. There's a lot that went zinging over my head but I got enough to get the gist of it, and I'm happy with that. There is beauty and thought in every Canto, from Inferno to Paradise. The amount of thought that Dante must have put into this idea and the amount of organizing it must have required to fix the hierarchies and levels must have been astounding and time consuming. From that, this work must have meant a lot to him for him to spend the time, energy and thought into making it happen.The work flows nicely. This translation is straightforward and the footnotes are good. Footnotes are important in this work for the background of the characters mentioned, which gives perspective and meaning to some of Dante's words.

The InfernoPhew! I'm glad to get out of Hell at last. I really like how Dante mixed together his times with various myths and legends. I can't say I "get" it all as I don't know a lot of the people or the myths and legends that Dante mentions. BUT I get the idea that Hell is hell. Dante's descriptions of Hell and the tortures and the increasingly more intense circles is amazing. It's so well intertwined and one circle leads ever more downwards into more subtle and damaging sins. Some of these tortures are the product of a very intense mind and I'm not likely to forget them. Glad to leave Hell behind and enter Purgatory.

PurgatorioMade it to Eden. It's a long climb up that mountain. I'm amazed that Dante is able to convey so much and on so many levels (many of which went right over my head) in very few words, considering. Purgatory has more of a feeling of movement in it than Inferno did. After thinking about it, it has to do with Dante's involvement in what's happening around him. In Hell, Dante was an observer; as if he was far removed from the sins being shown In Purgatory, Dante himself is involved in the purging of sins; he recognizes that these sins are also of himself. I'm on the fence about Beatrice at the moment and wasn't impressed with her first appearance in the book. Hope she's friendlier in Heaven.I'm continuing to enjoy C.H. Sisson's translation of this book. Onward to Paradise........

ParadisoOf the three sections, Paradise was my least favorite but I suppose it was the hardest for Dante to write. As an author, how does one write about Heaven, a place that no one has seen or can conceptualize? How to bring the peace, harmony, love and worship to the forefront? It must have been a daunting task. As a reader, I found Paradise a bit static. No one moved, lights shone and glittered, Dante was forever in awe at some beauty that he saw in Paradise but couldn't remember as he wrote this work. I understand why this section needs to be so vague but, as a reader, I didn't find it that interesting because of the vagueness.However, the thoughts and dialogues about “will”, “love”, “desire” and all the other virtues are interesting and thought-provoking. I enjoyed this aspect of the work. The last three lines (if I understand them even a little bit correctly) are a wonderful ending, bringing Dante’s desire and will in harmony with God’s love. ...more

Dante Alighieri, or simply Dante (May 14/June 13 1265 – September 13/14, 1321), is one of the greatest poets in the Italian language; with the comic story-teller Boccaccio and the poet Petrarch, he forms the classic trio of Italian authors. Dante Alighieri was born in the city-state Florence in 1265. He first saw the woman, or rather the child, who was to become the poetic love of his life when heDante Alighieri, or simply Dante (May 14/June 13 1265 – September 13/14, 1321), is one of the greatest poets in the Italian language; with the comic story-teller Boccaccio and the poet Petrarch, he forms the classic trio of Italian authors. Dante Alighieri was born in the city-state Florence in 1265. He first saw the woman, or rather the child, who was to become the poetic love of his life when he was almost nine years old and she was some months younger. In fact, Beatrice married another man, Simone di' Bardi, and died when Dante was 25, so their relationship existed almost entirely in Dante's imagination, but she nonetheless plays an extremely important role in his poetry. Dante attributed all the heavenly virtues to her soul and imagined, in his masterpiece The Divine Comedy, that she was his guardian angel who alternately berated and encouraged him on his search for salvation.

Politics as well as love deeply influenced Dante's literary and emotional life. Renaissance Florence was a thriving, but not a peaceful city: different opposing factions continually struggled for dominance there. The Guelfs and the Ghibellines were the two major factions, and in fact that division was important in all of Italy and other countries as well. The Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor were political rivals for much of this time period, and in general the Guelfs were in favor of the Pope, while the Ghibellines supported Imperial power. By 1289 in the battle of Campaldino the Ghibellines largely disappeared from Florence. Peace, however, did not insue. Instead, the Guelf party divided between the Whites and the Blacks (Dante was a White Guelf). The Whites were more opposed to Papal power than the Blacks, and tended to favor the emperor, so in fact the preoccupations of the White Guelfs were much like those of the defeated Ghibellines. In this divisive atmosphere Dante rose to a position of leadership. in 1302, while he was in Rome on a diplomatic mission to the Pope, the Blacks in Florence seized power with the help of the French (and pro-Pope) Charles of Valois. The Blacks exiled Dante, confiscating his goods and condemning him to be burned if he should return to Florence.

Dante never returned to Florence. He wandered from city to city, depending on noble patrons there. Between 1302 and 1304 some attempts were made by the exiled Whites to retrieve their position in Florence, but none of these succeeded and Dante contented himself with hoping for the appearance of a new powerful Holy Roman Emperor who would unite the country and banish strife. Henry VII was elected Emperor in 1308, and indeed laid seige to Florence in 1312, but was defeated, and he died a year later, destroying Dante's hopes. Dante passed from court to court, writing passionate political and moral epistles and finishing his Divine Comedy, which contains the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. He finally died in Ravenna in 1321....more